Upcoming Events:
Wednesday, 6 May 9 am
Radio Interview with Phil Nee, on “Jim Otis and Smalltown Crime, WRCO Radio, Richland Center, Wis.
Friday, 29 May, 7 pm
Book Talk, Signing and Sale, on “Upstairs and the Jim Otis Series,” Belleville Books, 20 East Main St., Belleville, Ill.
Saturday, 30 May,1-3 pm
Meet & Greet, Signing & Sale of Last Kid Books, at Belleville Books, 20 East Main St., Belleville, Ill.
The Weekly Screed
by David Benjamin “Meritocratic systems, with objective grading scales, are critical to that belief [that “blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators”]. Such scales have always been a great equalizer—offering a metric for achievement that bigotry could not alter.” —Justice Clarence Thomas MADISON, Wis.—When I dropped…
by David Benjamin “Never meet your heroes.” —Leroy Jethroe Gibbs, Rule #73 MADISON, Wis.—“Do you have a pen?” This is a question to which I’ve never said, “No.” Pens are among the things I carry. To some degree, each of us is defined by the accessories we take along, wherever we go. Likewise, forgetting…
by David Benjamin “If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.” —Paul Newman FORT PIERCE, Fla. (November, 2023)—When the trial of ex-president Donald Trump took a strange twist here last month, eventually triggering a lengthy delay in the proceedings, one commentator…
by David Benjamin “… Every town must have a place where phony hippies meet/ Psychedelic dungeons popping up on every street …” —The Mothers of Invention MADISON, Wis.— The counterculture is back, but in a mirror image, everything in reverse. It’s been with us since 2015 but we’ve barely noticed, because of its dizzying…
by David Benjamin “A little song, a little dance/ A little seltzer down your pants.” —Chuckles the Clown, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” MADISON, Wis.—Something has happened to TV situation comedies. Or is it me? For much of my life, I’ve been a sort of sitcom maven, not just watching and chuckling but analyzing…
by David Benjamin “”The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful—who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.” —Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph…
by David Benjamin “What I tell kids is, Don’t get mad, get even. Don’t spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don’t walk, to the nearest non-school library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your…
by David Benjamin “Lawd, in the bourgeois town, ooh the bourgeois town,/ I got the bourgeois blues, gonna spread the news aroun’./ Me and Marthy we was standin’ upstairs,/ Heard a white man say, ‘Don’t want no niggers up there … ” — Huddy Ledbetter MADISON, Wis.—It’s instructive to regard politics, especially nowadays but—really—forever,…
by David Benjamin “I shuddered to think that while we wanted that flag dragged into the mud and sullied beyond repair, we also wanted it pristine, its white stripes, summer cloud white. Watching it wave in the breeze of a distance made us nearly choke with emotion. It lifted us up with its promise and…
by David Benjamin “I’ll have what she’s having.” —Older lady customer at Katz’s deli, When Harry Met Sally PARIS—As I was wedging my way between two thirsty Frenchmen and awaiting eye contact with the publican behind the bar at Le Baron Rouge, a wine and oyster oasis near the ancient Marché d’Aligre, I thought…